The NY Times does a piece on the Florida Republican Governor who trails Donald Trump in the Republican polls, BUT?
Is the second place guy FOR the party it seems….
In an extensive examination of his life and record — across more than 100 interviews with aides, allies, antagonists and peers who detailed several previously unreported episodes spanning his decade in elected office — the most consistent appraisal was that DeSantis, who turns 44 this month, believes his raw instincts are unrivaled and that he may well be correct. He has for years merrily shunned the perspectives of moderating influences and gentle dissenters and found himself validated at every turn, his recent history a whir of nominally risky choices — expert-snubbing Covid policies, an uppercut at one of his state’s largest private employers, a long-shot bid for the office he holds — transmogrified to pure political upside as he seeks to position himself as his party’s rightful heir.
“You have a moment,” Casey DeSantis, his wife and closest adviser, has said privately in recent months, nodding at past would-be candidates who failed to seize their chance. The person speaking to her interpreted the remark unambiguously: The DeSantis family thinks this moment is theirs…
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DeSantis, who was never considered a leading culture warrior as a young congressman — once privately dismissing the party’s old-guard preoccupation with sexuality — has steered his state to the vanguard of right-wing social causes, responding nimbly to political market forces and enlisting a small conservative college in Michigan to help guide Florida classroom standards. He has proved willing to stir the far-right fringe, raising conspiracy theories about the F.B.I.’s “orchestrating” the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and saying of the federal medical official Anthony Fauci, whom he has suggested belongs in jail, “Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac.” Matt Gaetz, the trollish Florida congressman, was a friend and a close adviser, but DeSantis has kept a public distance amid a sex-trafficking probeinto the legislator. (Gaetz has denied wrongdoing.)
On and off camera, DeSantis has forged relationships not only with Fox, where a producer once gushed to a member of the governor’s staff that he could host a show, but with edgelord media types who have flocked to his state and boosted him online. (A former aide told me DeSantis regularly read his Twitter mentions.) In January, invitees to a dinner at the governor’s mansion included Dave Rubin, a popular right-wing web talk-show host, and Benny Johnson, a Newsmax host. Fellow DeSantis-heads from the Extremely Online right include Alex Jones — who in August declared him “way better than Trump” before begging the former president for forgiveness — and Elon Musk, with whom the governor has dined.
DeSantis’s canniest feat as a shadow candidate has been dazzling this sphere of Republican influence while heartening party elites who see him as one of their own, celebrated by throwback organs like The National Review and the Club for Growth, where one of his former top congressional aides now works. “There’s a lot riding on trying to make Ron DeSantis happen,” Sarah Longwell, a Republican operative and publisher of the anti-Trump conservative site The Bulwark, told me. “They see him as somebody who gets them out of having to defend Trump.”…
Note…
DeSantis is running for Governor right now…
The polling has the race actually a bit close….
image…National Review